Wow, a lot happens here in one week!! When I do this “in the cooler” post and download the images of the week I am always so shocked at all we do. Mostly right now I am just glad for the peace I feel and the sense of relaxation I am enjoying. Ha, as if there are ever quiet and relaxing moments in this house!! Right now Elijah, Sam, and Grace, are absolutely spinning in circles around me and a football is being thrown over my head as I type. We have 3 really wonderful weddings tomorrow. 3 is so incredibly comfortable for us! Please dear flower Gods don’t jinx me for saying that. There goes the peace I was feeling. Just because I felt peace, my inner voice started chanting my all too familar flower delivery prayers.  “Dear God, please watch over our weddings, please watch over my team, please let us get where we are going safe and sound, and watch over my precious petals.” The week started on Monday with these beautiful sample designs I created. We typically don’t do samples but in this case the client purchased samples and it was fun to start the week with flowers.

When I returned from the city, I found Evan had been shopping.

Evan bought a sewing machine. He took a sewing class last week and he literally sewed a full wall of fabric panels for one of our big events coming up very soon. Yes I know this is ridiculously impressive and I can’t quite believe my good fortune. In fact, each day we are more and more thrilled with our decision to join forces. Having him by my side and having him handle so much of the daily operations has been AWESOME and it’s the main reason I am feeling some peace and calm.

Our family room is 32 by 40. Evan sewed panels the full 32 feet width of our room. The blue tape marks on the floor indicated where he needed to cut the fabric. Genius. Tuesday I did back to back meetings with clients, literally all day long, oh and I think we had back to school night this day as well. This was also the day I missed the school bus because I was so engrossed in a design meeting!! Lame mom!!

Our favorite visitor of the week is always Don, of Don’s Dahlias. I am so blessed to have Don and his amazing dahlias in my life. His dahlias are absolutely beyond anything you have ever seen. My brides are so lucky I know Don!!

Once the flowers have all arrived they are sorted into recipes. These pictures show my bouquets before I begin to design.

These pictures show the same flowers after they are turned into bouquets!!

This bridal bouquet is going to the Eastern Shore and it honestly made my heart sing. I love, love, love, this bouquet. The striped green & cream & burg & cream flower is called a swamp lily or a cobra lily. I have only designed with this flower on a few occasions, so I was thrilled to touch, see, and create with this unique bloom.

This bouquet is just plain art!! It will be carried or presented over the arm. The colors and the texture are so perfect. Willow was woven through the bouquet and the brides favorite flower, the sunflower was used as the focal point of the design. This is a style or shape of bouquet I used to make all of the time, and I would  be very happy to see this look make a big come back!! I can seriously pack some flowers in to an elongated bouquet. This bouquet is so rich and warm, but also very happy!!!

This all white bridal bouquet is the epitome of a classic bouquet, it was made with the magical all white cabbage rose called Patience. This rose has become so hard to obtain and so costly that every week I fear I will not be able to get my requested stem count, so I buy from two sources to cover my bases. I don’t leave anything to chance when I am purchasing for a bridal bouquet. The other blooms in this bouquet include regular white roses, stock, spray roses, freesia, and ranunculus. Seeing big healthy ranunculus again is one of the pleasures of cooler weather!!

In this picture you can see Megan, Gaby, Linda, and Whitney!!

Our time together in the shop is always fun and my little ones keep us entertained and delighted throughout the day. This is my Elijah and his first T-Rex. Since Evan has been home I am getting a little more time with the kids and this means the world to me. I am not kidding when I say I work all day, everyday!!

I love this picture of Designer Gaby!! Such a pretty lady, making very pretty designs. Gaby was making these pieces for my mom because I was busy making bridal bouquets. My mother has an uncanny way of needing flowers in the middle of our huge events. Because these arrangements were very important indeed, we were happy to oblige!! My mom is placing these flowers on the altar at church in honor of my grandmothers birthday!! These are very special pieces so I put my hands across each design and gave them a little kiss!! In fact I do this with just about every piece we create, it’s my little floral kiss or touch, to say it has passed my standards!!

In addition to designing bouquets today we also did a site survey on another of our big events, one that happens to be next weekend. We did a practice run of how we will drape the ceiling of the barn with fabric and we checked the length on the chandeliers we will be installing over the head table. Once I gave this my little kiss of approval I quickly returned to the studio to get back to designing and I left this work to the boys.

Drop dead gorgeous!!

This is the floor of the cooler, everything is boxed up and ready to go, go, go!!

Wow, that was a huge “in the cooler” post. I think I started this 3 hours ago. I have done dishes, dressed the kids for bed, changed diapers, and heavens knows what else during the writing of this post. I am told constantly that people read this blog and this post. I would really love to have more comments on here, so if you are out there, let me know you are stopping by to check out whats “in my cooler.” Goodnight!!